This invention relates generally to analysis of the activity of chemical reaction networks and, more specifically, to computational methods for simulating and predicting the activity of multiple interacting reaction networks.
Therapeutic agents, including drugs and gene-based agents, are being rapidly developed by the pharmaceutical industry with the goal of preventing or treating human disease. Dietary supplements, including herbal products, vitamins and amino acids, are also being developed and marketed by the nutraceutical industry. Because of the complexity of the biochemical reaction networks in and between human cells, even relatively minor perturbations caused by a therapeutic agent or a dietary component in the abundance or activity of a particular target, such as a metabolite, gene or protein, can affect hundreds of biochemical reactions. These perturbations can lead to desirable therapeutic effects, such as cell stasis or cell death in the case of cancer cells or other pathologically hyperproliferative cells. However, these perturbations can also lead to undesirable side effects, such as production of toxic byproducts, if the systemic effects of the perturbations are not taken into account.
Current approaches to drug and nutraceutical development do not take into account the effect of a perturbation in a molecular target on systemic cellular behavior. In order to design effective methods of repairing, engineering or disabling cellular activities, it is essential to understand human cellular behavior from an integrated perspective.
Cellular metabolism, which is an example of a process involving a highly integrated network of biochemical reactions, is fundamental to all normal cellular or physiological processes, including homeostatis, proliferation, differentiation, programmed cell death (apoptosis) and motility. Alterations in cellular metabolism characterize a vast number of human diseases. For example, tissue injury is often characterized by increased catabolism of glucose, fatty acids and amino acids, which, if persistent, can lead to organ dysfunction. Conditions of low oxygen supply (hypoxia) and nutrient supply, such as occur in solid tumors, result in a myriad of adaptive metabolic changes including activation of glycolysis and neovascularization. Metabolic dysfunctions also contribute to neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular disease, neuromuscular diseases, obesity and diabetes. Currently, despite the importance of cellular metabolism to normal and pathological processes, a detailed systemic understanding of cellular metabolism in human cells is currently lacking.
Thus, there exists a need for models that describe interacting reaction networks within and between cells, including core metabolic reaction networks and metabolic reaction networks in specialized cell types, which can be used to simulate different aspects of multicellular behavior under physiological, pathological and therapeutic conditions. The present invention satisfies this need, and provides related advantages as well.